It’s been 4 months since the Great Gathering of Chefs. It’s hard to believe it was that long ago, and I should have been halfway finished with the book for next year’s Great Gathering and also for the new Toques in Black book. There are a total of 275 chefs that I have to coordinate with and photograph dishes for in the next 4 months. In addition I’m working on new books for Bachour, Makoto, Katie Rosenhouse and the Asian Food Mafia (AFM). It’s gonna be crazy.
Here’s what I’ve got so far; I met with all the chefs from the Asian Food Mafia and went over the details for their ebook. Photographed Brian Fowler’s dish at Black Barn for the Black Chefs Book (BCB). Chris Cheung at East Winds & Eric Kwan at Char House prepared their dishes for the AFM. Spent a day with Katie Rosenhouse photographing her book. Spent 6 days in St. Thomas to work on my house and chill out.
Back to New York and met with Salvatore Martone at L’Atelier to talk about his book and took some test shots on the High Line for backdrops for the book. I place a student from Food& Finance High School at David Burke’s Tavern 62 and stopped by to see how she is doing. She’ s doing well. I will be starting be starting the Line Cook Classes again soon. By the way The chefs of the AFM donated $800 that The James Beard Foundation gave them to kick start the classes. I am in awe of what they did. Wonderful. Next it was Doron Wong’s (AFM) turn to do his AFM dishes.
I’ve know and worked with Daniel Boulud for about 12 years, but he and I had never had a casual discussion with him. After waiting almost a year to get a chance to interview him it came thru. This was one on the most memorable times since being involved in the food world. I had a 30-45 minute time slot and spent 2 hours with Daniel. We spoke about lots of things that we haven’t heard before. It’s a 45 minute Podcast and something you should check out.
A one hour flight and I was in Nantucket to work with Chef Marcus Glade-Ware at The Greydon House. Marcus was the Exec Chef at Aureole in New York. He was really good then but he is really, really good now. The change is remarkable. The Pastry Chef Lissa Go is only 24 and doing things that shouldn’t be as good as they are at her age. Both chefs also prepared dishes for The Great Gathering of Chefs (TGG).
Back home for a day and then drove to Boston with my kids to check out some colleges. Of course I couldn’t just go to Boston for that so I stopped by to see Pastry Chef Thiago Silva to do a dish for the next (TGG). He made Corn Pancakes!
My next trip was to Westchester. The first stop was at Essie’s with Chef Brandon Walker. He prepared 3 dishes for the BCB. Then it was off to Terrence Brennan, who is now consulting, owned Picholine and Artisanal. He made a dish for TGG book. One last photo of the day with Haile Thomas who is not a cook but travels around the country giving lectures on the health and wellbeing of Vegan. Her recipes are wonderful, she’s very articulate and she’s 17 years old. My day was almost done. I had one more stop to make at my music arranger to talk about a new music project.
I’m getting tired just reading this.
Next day, Stopped by Ai Fiori to see Chef Scott Schneider and set Sept . 10th to shoot his dish for TGG. The on to the new Four Seasons Restaurant to photo Pastry Chef Vicki Wells and Exec Chef Diego Garcia’s dishes for TGG.
This week I was in Miami for 5 days. I’m working on a book with Makoto who is opening his 5th restaurant. He worked with Nobu before venturing out on his own. While there I met with Chef Cleophus Hethington and took some photos of a tasting that he was hosting. You’ll find the dish in the BCB book.
That’s it for now. I’m going to take a nap.
